Page:Homer - Iliad, translation Pope, 1909.djvu/105

122—169 While Jove descends in sluicy sheets of rain,

And all the labours of mankind are vain.

So raged Tydides, boundless in his ire,

Drove armies back, and made all Troy retire.

With grief the leader of the Lycian band

Saw the wide waste of his destructive hand:

His bended bow against the chief he drew;

Swift to the mark the thirsty arrow flew,

Whose forky point the hollow breastplate tore,

Deep in his shoulder pierced, and drank the gore;

The rushing stream his brazen armour dyed,

While the proud archer thus exulting cried:

"Hither, ye Trojans, hither drive your steeds!

Lo! by our hand the bravest Grecian bleeds.

Not long the deathful dart he can sustain;

Or Phœbus urged me to these fields in vain."

So spoke he, boastful; but the winged dart

Stopped short of life, and mocked the shooter's art.

The wounded chief, behind his car retired,

The helping hand of Sthenelus required;

Swift from his seat he leaped upon the ground,

And tugged the weapon from the gushing wound;

When thus the king his guardian power addressed

The purple current wandering o'er his vest:

"O progeny of Jove! unconquered Maid!

If e'er my godlike sire deserved thy aid,

If e'er I felt thee in the fighting field,

Now, goddess, now, thy sacred succour yield.

Oh, give my lance to reach the Trojan knight,

Whose arrow wounds the chief thou guard'st in fight;

And lay the boaster grovelling on the shore,

That vaunts these eyes shall view the light no more."

Thus prayed Tydides, and Minerva heard,

His nerves confirmed, his languid spirits cheered;

He feels each limb with wonted vigour light;

His beating bosom claims the promised fight.

" Be bold," she cried, "in every combat shine,

War be thy province, thy protection mine;

Rush to the fight, and every foe control;

Wake each paternal virtue in thy soul:

Strength swells thy boiling breast infused by me,

And all thy godlike father breathes in thee!

Yet more, from mortal mists I purge thy eyes,

And set to view the warring deities.

These see thou shun, through all the embattled plain,

Nor rashly strive where human force is vain.

If Venus mingle in the martial band,

Her shalt thou wound: so Pallas gives command."